The Briefing

The 2014 edition of the “Climate Change Performance Index” has just been released by Climate Action Network Europe and Germanwatch. This blog post looks at some of the details and considers what NZ could be aiming for if it is to be a responsible “international citizen”.

It’s official, this was the warmest winter ever recorded for New Zealand according to NIWA scientists. Continuing warming of the planet may pose significant risks of run-away climate change and catastrophic levels of damage to human civilisation – a public health threat on a scale larger than we usually consider.

An article we published last week generated plenty of debate in particular on the complexities of taxing food. In this blog, Professor Nick Wilson argues that, yes, such tax packages have to be well designed (and more research would be helpful), but nevertheless that there is much that could be potentially gained by taxes on saturated fat.